


misdirection

by orphan_account



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Amnesia, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, I Don't Even Know, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Roommates, The Velvet Room (Persona Series), Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-03-05 18:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18834472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I got stabbed by a piece of metal and nearly died,” she blurts out.“What?”Or:The Phantom Thieves fuck up a heist for the first time and barely escape with their lives. Somehow a girl named Watanabe Hotaru is caught up in the middle of it. Kurusu Akira has a shitstorm to deal with.College student Watanabe Hotaru wakes up with no memory whatsoever. With no family or friends, she turns to the Phantom Thieves for help. She quickly realizes she’s in over her head as she uncovers a plot that goes beyond imagination.





	1. wake up

**Author's Note:**

> listen i read too many good persona 5 fics so i. just. went for it. first time writing for this fandom whoops!
> 
> warning for some dysphoria, deadnaming, and mention of needles.

She blinks. Slowly, she sits up gingerly and prods her torso. Her hand settles over the unmarred surface of her belly. Wait. Unmarred?

She furrows her brow. That doesn’t make sense. In fact, a lot of things don’t make sense. When she tries casting for a memory, she finds… emptiness. No faces, no memories, not even a name surfaces. Where is she? No, _who_ is she?

“Hm. You woke up.”

She whips her head towards the voice and bites back a shriek. A strange man with a large hooked nose, a wide smile, bulging eyes, and pointed ears―like some kind of cartoonish goblin―sits behind a fancy desk and stares at her. He’s dressed in an expensive looking, tailored suit, complete with white gloves. His gaze carefully sweeps across the area, passing over her as if she’s a speck in the background, and he sighs.

“Strange… very strange…” he mutters. What’s strange? The fact that he looks like a posh goblin?

Suddenly, the man slams his hands on his desk (she nearly jumps out of her skin) and stands up in one fluid motion. “No matter. You were called here for a reason.”

She backpedals at his _sheer size_. He spreads his arms wide, looming over her. ( _Okay_ , she thinks, _that is a giant goblin._ )

“Welcome,” he rasps, “to the Velvet Room. I am Igor, the Proprietor of this place.”

She squints. Huh? She cast her eyes about and sees that the so-called “Velvet Room” is nothing but a pitch black _void_ aside from the singular piece of furniture (actually _two_ pieces of furniture, if she counts the ominous looking chair). There’s no better way to describe it. Inky darkness stretches to forever in all directions. By the time she returns her attention to the strange man named Igor, he’s already settled back into his seat and tenting his fingers.

“It is between dream and reality. This is no different for you, even when dying.”

She flinches. Her mind’s eye replays the last few moments before—right. Right. There was an explosion, and… some sort of metal shrapnel had….

Right. She’d been pierced through her stomach by a stray metal shrapnel from a nearby explosion. No wonder she feels so _odd_ around there.

“So…” she begins, then stops. She can _talk_. Shouldn’t she be coughing up blood like some dying anime character or something? She licks her suddenly dry lips and forges on anyway. “So… I’m… in limbo? Sort of? I’m dead?”

Igor hums. “That would be correct, in a sense, yes. But you’re not dead. Not yet.”

The “not yet” part makes her stomach churn uneasily. Moreso when she remembers that a hunk of metal should be there.

“Even now, you are fighting for your life.” Igor says, tenting his fingers and staring at her with his disturbingly bulging eyes. It feels like he’s staring right into her soul, like he’s testing her. “Collateral damage. That is how they will tell of your death. You were simply at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and you were killed for it. That is your fate. Do you wish to accept it?”

The back of her throat burns. That… that’s it? Just collateral damage? A footnote? Is that how much her life is worth: collateral damage? Not even worth the dignity of being called a victim? It’s… it’s not _fair_. Something―or maybe everything―about this feels wrong. As far as she knows, she’s not at fault. How could she, when she’s the one dying? The one who, apparently, was at the wrong place and wrong time?

It feels like something is choking her, restraining her, but she doesn’t care because she knows she can fight her way out. She’s too pissed to go down like this—she’d rather die fighting than die with her head down. She rips away at one dark coil lashing around her arms before it can bind her wrists. Another coil lashes around her ankle. She shakes that off too—and realizes what she’s doing.

She blinks. That. That’s new.

“No,” she says, almost hesitant. Then she steels herself. Her voice is clearer, stronger when she says, “No. I don’t… I don’t want to accept it.”

Igor stares for a long moment before a slow, wide grin pulls at his lips.

“I see. Very well.” Igor plucks a quill from its stand, pulls a sheaf of paper towards himself, and begins writing.

Meanwhile, she plucks the strange, dark shadows off herself even as they continue multiplying and latching onto her. It isn’t hard, but it certainly is annoying. Why isn’t Igor doing anything about them?

“These things, what are th—?”

“Sign here.”

She looks up from the disturbing mass of writhing, shadowy tendrils at her feet to see Igor holding out his quill and sliding a piece of paper towards her.

“If you wish to live, sign here.” he says, simply, like a fact instead of a threat.

“What if I don’t want to?” she snaps. Then, a large shadowy coil loops around her waist and _drags_ her back. She gasps and flails against the sudden pull.

Igor stares her down.

“You don’t have much of a choice,” he notes. He still offers her the quill even as she struggles. “Death doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

She rolls her eyes and forces herself to take a step towards the desk, even as the shadows greedily tug at her legs.

“And you’re not gonna help?!” she yelps.

Igor shrugs. “I cannot fight death. But you can.”

“You’re just! Sitting there! With a stupid paper and—”

She stumbles and loses an inch. With a shrill, angry cry, she kicks at the shadow and hits something solid. An unholy screech rattles through her ears. She scoffs. “Yeah, fuck you too buddy. Anyway!”

She finally makes it to the desk, breathing hard.

“Anyway,” she continues, then stares down at the written document. The words are jumbled and mashed together but her eyes are drawn to the signature line marked with an elegant cross. “What is this?”

“A contract.”

She raises an eyebrow. “So, what, are you gonna own my soul with this?”

“Time is ticking and Death is getting impatient.”

She grits her teeth. The shadows are getting stronger and, sooner or later, she won’t fight them off for much longer.

“ _Whatever_.” she bites out, then takes the quill from Igor.

Her hand writes a name on its own. The quill quietly falls out of her grip as she stares at the drying ink.

_Watanabe Hotaru._ She distantly remembers a story. She remembers… a woman, warm and kind and loving, telling her of a firefly who met a wandering soul and helped guide them to the afterlife with their light. She remembers the woman petting her hair affectionately, like… like a mother, as she told the story. What on earth—?

Suddenly the world shifts violently, twisting around her, and then she’s falling, falling, falling.

“The contract is sealed.” Igor’s voice echoes. “ _Thank you for your patronage._ ”

Everything after that is a blur.

 

* * *

 

She wakes up gasping, then promptly hacks into the oxygen mask over her face. Someone pulls it off of her and she inhales gulpfuls of air.

“Easy. Easy. You’re fine. You’re okay.”

She blinks and stares at the woman dressed in a medical uniform. A nurse? She blearily looks around, and nearly retches. There are a plethora of tubes sticking out of her arms, all funneling fluids into her. A worrying amount of them have blood inside. She clenches and unclenches her fists, trying to her keep her mind calm and sane and _wow that’s a lot of needles_.

“Mmrgh?” She says intelligently, with a hint of panic. Why are there needles in her arms? Why does everything _hurt_ so damn much?

“Hello, Watanabe-san. My name is Yamamoto Rei. I’m your nurse at the Shibuya Hospital. You were unconscious for the last two weeks or so.”

The nurse’s—Yamamoto’s—voice is calm, methodical, soothing. It helps ease the knot in the middle of her chest and she slowly settles down. Oh, right. Her last name’s Watanabe.

“How are you feeling?”

_Shitty_ , she wants to say, except her tongue feels too thick in her mouth and her lips are cracked. So she answers with an aborted jerk of her shoulders to emulate a shrug. But her mind starts to backtrack and stumbles over a particular word.

“W-ait.” Hotaru cringes at the sound of her cracking voice. “Week…?”

Rei stares at her with a sad look in her eyes. It feels like pity.

“Yes, two weeks. There was an explosion in your residence. You were the only survivor.”

 

* * *

 

Hotaru, apparently, hasn’t had contact with her family beyond her now deceased parents and older brother. She tries to muster some emotion. Shouldn’t she be _sad_ that she lost her entire family to an explosion from a gas leak? But all she feels is… nothing. Not even numbness, just… nothing, maybe a little bit of guilt that she doesn’t feel as torn up about their deaths as she _should_ be. It’s as if these people never meant anything to her at all, and it’s all because she can’t remember them aside from some bedside story that, she assumes, her mother told. That scares her.

All she has left is a few clothes, a will from her deceased family to read later, a phone with a broken screen, and a couple of textbooks. She quietly packs her pitiful belongings into a rucksack and slings it over her shoulder. Hotaru stares at her newly reissued ID card sitting on a cheap desk in the hospital’s temporary shelter. Its plastic shine mocks her with an identity she can’t remember.

Watanabe Kaito. Age: 21. Sex: Male. Date of Birth: October 1. Status: College student. The photo is of a plain-faced man with shoulder-length hair and a slight stubble.

Hotaru self-consciously rubs her chin. It feels smooth. Her hair reaches the middle of her shoulder blades. She pokes her chest―yep, those are real boobs. Pretty small, but they are definitely apparent. The man in the photo feels familiar and disorienting, like looking at old pictures of yourself.

She snatches the card and shoves it into her pants pocket.

First order of business: she needs to find a place to stay, then find out… well, everything. There’s some weird crowd at the front of the hospital, so the nurses have to guide her out the back just to leave. Which is weird, but Hotaru doesn’t pay much attention to it. As long as she can move, even with her wobbly and weak limbs, then she’s fine.

Hotaru lets her feet guide her to wherever. At this point, she needs all the information she can get. If it means scouting the city, then so be it. Surely it won’t be so bad, right?

 

* * *

 

Except, Hotaru spends hours wandering around Shibuya for heavens know how long. Eventually, she makes it out of the crowded parts of the city and finds herself in a relatively secluded area. She beelines straight for an empty bench and outright collapses into it with a grateful sigh.

_Man_ , she isn’t really getting anywhere. Maybe she needs to rethink this. The address on her card seems promising, but she probably won’t get much out of staring at broken rubble and enduring pitying looks from neighbors. And Hotaru is _tired_ of the pity. She’s gotten enough of that at the hospital.

As she contemplates her current predicament, lying face down on the bench seat, she hears footsteps. She turns to see a shadow loom over her. Her mind flashes back to the strange, goblin-like man named Igor, spreading his arms and leering at her with bulging eyes.

Hotaru jerks up and lashes out with a hard kick—

“ _Ow!_ Fuck—”

She blinks. Stares at the young man writhing on the ground, clutching his knee. Oh. Oh shit.

“Oh shit,” she says, helpfully, and scrambles to her feet. “Oh no, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

The young man holds up a hand.

“It’s fine,” he gasps. “I’ll live.”

Hotaru winces. He doesn’t sound fine.

“Here, let me help you up.”

She grabs hold of the man’s hand and gingerly pulls him to his feet. The man looks surprised for a second but then recovers almost immediately as soon as he’s upright. He dusts himself off like Hotaru didn’t just try to shatter his kneecap.

“Sorry for scaring you—I saw you out on the bench so I wondered…”

Hotaru feels her cheeks burn against her will. “No, no—sorry for the trouble, I’m fine, just…”

“Wait.”

Now that Hotaru and the man are standing before each other, she can tell that she’s a little taller than the man and that he’s wearing an apron around his waist, glasses, and has fluffy hair. Something in the back of her mind tells her that he’s important, somehow, but can’t tell how or why. He seems normal, if a bit too pretty to be just an average guy.

“Hey, you’re Watanabe-san, right?” the man says, catching her so off-guard that she actually stumbles a little.

“Huh?”

“Yeah—remember me? It’s Akira. You visited Leblanc a lot then stopped coming all of a sudden. What happened?” he says, and Hotaru has to stop herself from gaping in case he gets suspicious.

Wait. Suspicious? Of what? What does she have to hide? Doesn’t she need to get information? This is a person who can potentially help her out with her missing memories.

“Um,” she starts, then stops. “Sorry, I… kind of got into a bad accident. And, um. Forgot about a lot of stuff. Er, including you.”

Akira looks crestfallen and Hotaru winces. She feels bad. Where is her stupid filter? Because all that comes out of her mouth is a stream of exactly the wrong words to say.

“Oh. I’m very sorry to hear about that. Are you… okay?”

Akira studies her. He looks… calculating, in a way? But Hotaru can’t really say that for sure, because he also looks genuinely concerned. There’s no pity in his eyes, at least. She decides to trust him for now. Maybe he might know more about the situation than she does.

“Yeah. I’m okay.” Hotaru finally says. “At least I still found my… favorite cafe?”

She wants to smack herself. Yes, just keep spewing things that make no sense. That’s a _perfect_ plan. Akira looks as doubtful as Hotaru feels, but then he gives her a gentle smile that makes her heart jump for some weird reason.

“Flattered.” He grins and jerks his chin. “Come on in, I bet you need a drink.”

Her stomach grumbles very loudly at that moment. Both he and Hotaru stare down at it. Huh. So it’s still functioning.

“What do you mean?” Akira asks, and Hotaru realizes she said that aloud. Oops.

“I got stabbed by a piece of metal and nearly died,” she blurts out.

“ _What?_ ”

She hastily amends: “B-but I’m—I’m okay now. So, um, no need to worry! A-anyway, let’s go inside! I’m starving!”

Before Akira can get another word in edgewise, she abruptly turns him around by the shoulders and shoves him in a direction. She looks over his shoulder and sees a little corner shop with a sign that reads: “Coffee & Curry, Leblanc”. That’s such an odd combination, but her stomach thinks that it’s the most delicious sounding meal.

She doesn’t notice the wary look on Akira’s face.

 

* * *

 

Akira slides behind the counter as Hotaru takes a seat. She takes in the cafe interior out of curiosity.

Stained glass lamps hang over the cozy looking booths, and the counter looks clean but well worn from time. Jars of spice and coffees litter the shelves behind the counter. The handwritten chalk signs detailing products and their items as well as the strange, antique-looking, bright yellow phone sitting at the end of the counter add a unique charm to the place. She watches Akira grab a pitcher and smile at her. She smiles back. That’s how she should respond, right?

“So. What would you like, Watanabe-san?” he asks politely.

“Uh,” she says, intelligently, and cranes her head up to read the signs. “Er… the beef curry, I guess? And some cappuccino.”

Akira nods and sets to work. As he does, Hotaru furrows her brow and goes over the facts in her head.

Her ID card is of a man’s, but she’s a girl. She’s a college student, but she doesn’t know which college she attends. Her clothes looked pretty expensive when she was packing them away earlier, so maybe she’s rich too? And she has—er, _had_ a family. Parents and an older brother. She wonders what kind of relationships she had with them before they died.

A cup of cappuccino enters her vision, cutting Hotaru off from her train of thought.

“Coffee for your thoughts?”

She looks up and sees Akira smirking. What’s he so smug about? Her opinion of him decreases slightly as she politely takes the cup from him. Her heart jumps a little from their fingers barely brushing against each other, but she doesn’t think too much on it and takes a sip of her drink. Her eyebrows rise of their own accord.

“Oh, this is good,” she replies, setting down her cup. “That’s my thought.”

“Any other thoughts?” Akira prods, leaning on the counter with his elbows. He’s got long eyelashes for a guy. Damn him. She wants to be that pretty.

Hotaru hums as she drums her fingers on the table and searches for her plate of beef curry. She finds it sitting not too far from her coffee and immediately drags it towards herself. Her brow furrows. Where’s the—

“Looking for this?”

She looks up again to find Akira holding a spoon.

“Oh. Yeah.” Hotaru reaches for it. “Thanks—”

Akira jerks the spoon out of her reach. She frowns. What gives?

“How’d you find your way here?” he asks simply. His face seems… impenetrable now. She can’t read anything—whatever he’s thinking or feeling, it’s completely walled off from her.

But he poses a good question.

“I… don’t exactly know. I was just wandering around.” Hotaru answers honestly. Then she holds out her hand. “Can I have the spoon now? I’m kind of hungry.”

Akira taps the spoon against his cheek thoughtfully. She grows irritated the longer he stays still and quiet. Seriously, what’s his deal?

“Mm,” he hums in a tone that sounds like he doesn’t believe her. “Watanabe Kaito. Twenty-one years old. Youngest of the Watanabe family, renown for their business empire.” Suddenly Akira leans in, close enough that he invades Hotaru’s personal space (she has to stay the urge to slap him). “Hotaru-san. What _exactly_ happened to you?”

She leans back, her mind _reeling_. How does he know about the guy on her ID card? And her family? And her actual name?

“What the hell’s your problem?” she bursts, bristling. She stands from her seat and glares at Akira. “Listen, if this is about me kicking your knee, I said I was sorry. Here, just—”

Hotaru digs around in her pockets for money to pay for the meal and _leave_ , but comes up empty. Her eyes widen. Wh—? Doesn’t she have money? She digs around in all the pockets on her person, then in her rucksack for cash. No wallet, no money, no cash anywhere. Not even a single coin!

“You aren’t planning to just dine and run, right?” Akira says darkly. She flinches from the tone.

_Fuck_. She’s so screwed.


	2. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

**ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ**

_ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ_

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

~~ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ~~

> _~ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ_

  * ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
    * ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
  * ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
    * ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
  * ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ



 

* * *

 

  1. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
    1. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
  2. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
    1. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
  3. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ



ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

_ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ_

**ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ**

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

**Author's Note:**

> i Sure Don't Know What The Fuck I'm Doing! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ we're in for a ride lads!!


End file.
